Once Ransome was off the phone for good Peter decided to go on the offensive.
‘You live up this way?”
“I was raised here,” Ransome said. “Bedford Village.”
“So that’s where we’re going, your house?”
“No. The house I grew up in is no longer there. I let go of all but a few acres after my parents died.”
“Must’ve been worth a bundle.”
“I didn’t need the money.”
“You were rich already, is that it?”
‘Yes.”
“So—this special assignment the commissioner was talking about? You need for somebody to handle a, what, situation for you? Somebody causing you a problem?”
‘You’re my only problem at the moment, Peter.”
“Okay, well, maybe I guessed that. So this is going to be about Echo?”
Ransome smiled disarmingly. “Do you think I’m a rich guy out to steal your girl, Peter?”
“I’m not worried. Echo’s not gonna be your—what do you call it, your ‘subject?’ You know that already.”
“I think there is more of a personal dilemma than you’re willing to admit. It affects both you and Echo.”
Peter shrugged, but the back of his neck was heating up.
“I don’t have any personal dilemmas, Mr. Ransome. That’s for guys who have too much time and too much money on their hands. You know? So they try to amuse themselves messin’ around in other people’s lives, who would just as soon be left alone.”
“Believe me. I have no intention of causing either of you the slightest—” He leaned forward and pointed out the window.
“This may interest you. One of my former subjects lives here.”
They were passing an estate enclosed by what seemed to be a quarter mile of low stone walls. Peter glimpsed a manor house in a grove of trees, and a name on a stone gatepost. Van Lier.
“I understand she’s quite happy. But we haven’t been in touch since Anne finished sitting for me. That was many years ago.”
“Looks to be plenty well-off,” Peter said.
“I bought this property for her.”
Peter looked at him with a skeptical turn to his lips.
“All of my former subjects have been well provided for—on the condition that they remain anonymous.”
“Why?”
“Call it a quirk,” Ransome said, with a smile that mocked Peter’s skepticism. “Us rich guys have all these quirks.” He turned his attention to the road ahead. “There used to be a fruit and vegetable stand along this road that had truly wonderful pears and ap-les at this season. I wonder—yes, there it is.”
Peter was thirsty and the cider at the stand was well chilled. He walked around while Ransome was choosing apples. Among the afternoon’s shoppers was a severely disabled young woman in a wheelchair that looked as if it cost almost as much as a sports car.
When Ransome returned to the limo he asked Peter, “Do you like it up here?”
“Fresh air’s giving me a headache. Something is.” He finished his cider. “How many have there been, Mr. Ransome? Your ‘subjects,’ I mean.”
“Echo will be the eighth. If I’m able to persuade—”
“No if. You’re wasting your time.” Peter looked at the helpless young woman in the wheelchair as she was being power-lifted into a van.
“ALS is a devastating disease, Peter. How long before Echo’s mother can no longer care for herself?”
“She’s probably got two or three years.”
“And after that?”
“No telling. She could live to be eighty. If you want to call it living.”
“A terrible burden for Echo to have to bear. Let’s be frank.”
Peter stared at him, crushing his cup.
“Financially, neither of you will be able to handle the demands of Rosemay’s illness. Not and have any sort of life for yourselves. But I can remove that burden.”
Peter put the crushed paper cup in a trash can from twenty feet away, turning his back on Ransome.
“Did you fuck all of them?”
‘You know I have no intention of answering a question like that, Peter. I will say this: there can never be any conflict, any— hidden tension between my subjects and myself that will adversely affect my work.
The work is all that really matters.”
Peter looked around at him as blandly as he could manage, but the sun was in his eyes and they smarted.
“Here’s what matters to us. Echo and me are going to be married. We know there’re problems. We’ve got it covered. We don’t need your help. Was there anything else?”
“I’m happy that we’ve had this time to become acquainted. Would you mind one more stop before we head back to the city?”
“Take your time. I’m on the clock, Pop said. So far it’s easy money.”
At the end of a winding uphill gravel drive bordered by stacked rock walls that obviously had been there for a century or longer, the limousine came to a pretty Cotswold-style stone cottage with slate roofs that overlooked a lake and a wildfowl sanctuary.
They parked on a cobblestone turnaround and got out. A caterer’s van and a blue Land Rover stood near a separate garage.
“That’s Connecticut a mile or so across the lake. In another month the view turns—well, as spectacular as a New England fall can be. In winter, of course, the lake is perfect for skating. Do you skate, Peter?”
“Street hockey,” Peter said, taking a deep breath as he looked around. The sun was setting west of a small orchard behind the cottage; there was a good breeze across the hilltop. “So this is where you grew up?”
“No. The caretaker lived here. This cottage and about ten acres of woods and orchard are all that’s left of the five hundred acres my family owned. All of it is now deeded public land. No one can build another house within three-quarters of a mile.”
“Got it all to yourself? Well, this is definitely where I’d work if I were you. Plenty of peace and quiet.”
“When I was much younger than you, just beginning to paint, the woods in all their form and color were like an appetite. Paraphrasing Wordsworth, a different kind of painter—poetry being the exotic pigment of language.” He looked slowly around, eyes brimming with memory. “Almost six years since I was up here.
Now I spend most of my time in Maine. But I recently had the cottage redecorated, and added an infinity pool on the lake side. Do you like it, Peter?”
“I’m impressed.”
“Why don’t you have a look around inside?”
“Looks like you’ve got company. Anyway, what’s the point?”
“The point is, the cottage is yours, Peter. A wedding present for you and Echo.”
Peter had hit a trifecta two years ago at Aqueduct, which rewarded him with twenty-six hundred dollars.
He’d been thrilled by the windfall. Now he was stunned. When his heartbeat was more or less under control he managed to say, “Wait a minute. You . . . can’t do this.”
“It’s done, Peter. Echo is in the garden, I believe. Why don’t you join her? I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
“Omigod, Peter, do you believe it?”
She was on the walk that separated garden and swimming pool, the breeze tugging her hair across her eyes. There were a lot of roses in the garden, he noticed. He felt, in spite of the joy he saw in Echo’s face, a thorn in his heart. And it was a crushing effort for him just to breathe.
“Jesus, Echo—What’ve you done?”
“Peter—”
He walked through the garden toward her. Echo sat on a teakwood bench, hands folded in her lap, her pleasure dimmed to a defensive smile because she knew what was coming. He could almost see her stubborn streak surfacing, like a shark’s fin in bloodied waters. Peter made an effort to keep his tone reasonable.
“Wedding present? That’s china and toasters and things. How do we rate something like this? Nobody in his right mind would give away—”
“I haven’t done anything,” Echo said. “And it isn’t ours. Not yet.”
“I’m usually in my right mind,” John Ransome said pleasantly. Peter stopped, halfway between Echo and Ransome, who was in the doorway to the garden, the setting sun making of his face a study in sanguinity. He held a large thick envelope in one hand. “Escrow to the cottage and grounds will close in one year, when Mary Catherine has completed her obligation to me.” He smiled. “I don’t expect an invitation to the wedding. But I wish you both a lifetime of happiness. I’ll leave this inside for you to read.”
Nobody said anything for a few moments. They heard a helicopter. Ransome glanced up. “My ride is here,”
he said. “Make yourselves at home for as long as you like, and enjoy the dinner I’ve had prepared for you.
My driver will take you back to the city when you’re ready to go-”
The night turned unseasonably chilly for mid-September, temperature dropping into the low fifties by nine o’clock. One of the caterers built a fire on the hearth in the garden room while Echo and Peter were served after-dinner brandies. They sipped and read the contract John Ransome had left for Echo to sign, Peter passing pages to her as he finished reading.